Ecstatic Beauty – Doctor Who
Date Reviewed: October 24, 2023
Ratings:
Constructed: 2.63
Casual: 4.00
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 3.50
Commander [EDH]: 3.75
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
You may recall my past comments about how Magic’s designers need to show more of the range of emotions and concepts within each of the colors, and this card’s concept is exactly what I was talking about. One of red’s domains is emotion, and not just the desire to hit someone with a heavy object, and the Prismari cards from Strixhaven also leaned into the ideas of creativity and art. But those concepts get a lot more exposure when they’re on good cards – how does Ecstatic Beauty rank on those? It doesn’t superficially read like a tournament-tier card, as the cheapest way to cast it with mana open also telegraphs it enormously, not to mention pushing anything it suspends into the super-late game. But the hidden secret of card-drawing spells is that you often don’t want to cast them on curve, and going for its regular mana cost on turn five or six is probably a better play than it might sound like. I’m not sure that’s quite enough for Legacy, as the format is fast and there are some really frighteningly efficient examples, though I think this card will be easy to underestimate in casual play.
Constructed: 2.5
Casual: 4
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.5
Impulse draw with a twist is always interesting, and Ecstatic Beauty has a bit of intrigue. Three mana for three cards is reasonable, but suspend shenanigans is amusing enough. This coming off of suspend on turn 5 is a bit slow, but that this auto-suspends spells that are exiled with suspend is also pretty intriguing for some spells…including other copies of Ecstatic Beauty.
Honestly, this is a pretty interesting spell in all, and I suspect it would have had some impressive legs in Modern and Standard. Unfortunately, this is just a bit awkward to make use of in Legacy. That said, this plays pretty well with storm and other time-spinning mechanics, and I think this is a pretty solid spell for red in Commander. An effective “draw three” is always a welcome sight for three mana, or for zero mana if you want to wait it out. It’s probably going to be better in Commander, but I can see upside.
Constructed: 2.75 (I just think this is a bit too weak for Legacy, but I could be wrong)
Casual: 4
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4
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